Ending manifesto of the Catalan Culture Congress (1977)
After a long period in which the development of Catalan culture took place under totally abnormal conditions, without means of self-organization and in the face of anti-national and denationalizing actions, the present times urgently demand the restoration of normalcy in Catalan society.
- We affirm the linguistic and cultural unity of the Catalan Countries, rooted in common history and shared reality.
- We affirm the immediate need for the transformation and renewal of society, to overcome national and social forms of oppression and achieve its full and normal development.
We believe the following to be fundamentally necessary:
- A new model of economic and social development, based on:
The organization of the Catalan countries and industrial planning. The protection of cultural and natural heritage. The expansion of education, health care, research, arts, and the media. The full implementation of the Catalan Countries’ own language in public, official, and social use.
- A new configuration of political organization and social structure, based on the fundamental principles of self-governance and democracy.
Each of the Catalan Countries holds the inalienable and undeniable right to establish its own self-governing political structure. As a collective, they have both the right and the need to coordinate and align their efforts and actions.
The immediate goals demanded by the progress of our society will only be achieved through the united efforts of the people.
Països Catalans, 1977
* Extract from the Final Manifesto of the Catalan Culture Congress (1977).
Objectives of the Catalan Culture Congress (1975-1977)
1. Share culture
To build a common cultural and social project for all Catalan-speaking territories, understanding ourselves as one diverse and interconnected people
2. Strengthen the language as a unifying force
To promote Catalan as a full and shared language, ensuring its use in all areas of life.
3. Restore democratic self-governance
To defend self-governing, representative, and democratic institutions in each territory as expressions of collective will and historical legitimacy.
4. Acknowledge territorial diversity
To value the distinct realities of the various territories of the Catalan Countries while embracing deep cultural and historical bonds.
5. Preserve cultural and natural heritage
To care for land, landscape, and cultural richness as collective assets, preventing their degradation and putting them at the service of society.
6. Reclaim popular culture
To recognize expressions as the “sardanes”, “castells”, and “gegants” as living parts of a rooted and shared culture.
* “Sardanes” are a traditional Catalan circle dance performed while holding hands.
* “Castells” is a Catalan tradition that consists on building human towers of varying difficulty.
* “Gegants” are giant figures worn as costumes, featured in parades and festivals across the Catalan Countries
7. Make culture accessible to all
To make culture an inclusive and plural tools that serves people, with freedom of expression and respect for diversity.
8. Establish our own legal framework
To build a legal framework that reflects the realities of our communities and regulates daily and collective life with justice and fairness.
A structure for thought and action
The Catalan Culture Congress was organized into several bodies that ensured participation, management, and cultural reflection across the Catalan Countries:
Honorary board: A single board represented the entire Catalan-speaking territories, made up of highly respected intellectual and cultural figures:
- President: Jordi Rubió i Balaguer
- Vice President for the Valencian Country: Joan Fuster
- Vice President for the Principality (Catalonia): Joan Miró
- Vice President for the Balearic Islands: Francesc de Borja Moll
- Vice President for Northern Catalonia: Pere Ponsich
- Vice President for Andorra: Joan Martí i Alanís
- Promoting Commission: Gathered the organizations affiliated with the Congress.
Standing Commission: was the true organizational engine. Composed of around eighty individuals, this executive body oversaw the overall coordination of the Congress’s activities. It was chaired by the dean of the Barcelona Bar Association, Miquel Casals Colldecarrera, with Josep Pi-Sunyer i Cuberta, also from the Bar Association, serving as secretary.
Executive Committee: with 27 members, this body was responsible for managing the daily challenges and decisions.
Cultural Secretariat: oversaw the 25 thematic areas and drafted the Congress’s final resolutions
Two years of cultural mobilization (1975-1977)
A broad-based call that turned the Catalan Countries into a space for collective debate.
The Catalan Culture Congress mobilized society through thousands of endorsements, which expressed public—and often financial—support for the project, as well as through widespread active participation in debates, proposals, and local organization.
Endorsements of the Congress:
- 1,400 organizations
- 63 municipalities
- 29 professional associations
- 12,400 individuals
Participation
- 3,400 professionals, intellectuals, artists, and others involved in the fields of study
- Hundreds of thousands of participants from schools, youth groups, community centers, neighborhood associations, parishes, labor unions, and more
All coordinated through 300 territorial and sectoral secretariats.
A collective organization to “think the future”
The Congress was a large participatory and collective work structure designed to rethink what Catalan culture and society should be in a democracy. To ensure its effectiveness, the Congress was organized into three main forms of work:
25 thematic areas, ranging from education to landscape, from healthcare to the arts. Each area held meetings and drafted resolutions with assessments and concrete proposals for institutions.
Campaigns, with two clear objectives: mobilizing the population and connecting the Congress’s ideas with everyday reality. There were five campaigns focused on key issues such as the official use of Catalan, natural heritage, and local institutions.
Cultural actions
Additionally, cultural dissemination actions were promoted to reach diverse spaces and broad audiences. Free materials were created, and three main actions were carried out. These actions helped sow reflection and critical spirit, especially among young people.
All of this was possible thanks to a large network of people and entities organized into a Cultural Secretariat that brought the Congress to life in every neighborhood, town, and city.
This network made the Congress a truly transformative tool: a demonstration of how culture, understood broadly, can become an engine for collective change.
Language, literature: pillars of cohesion
The Catalan language was the central axis of the Congress. It was defended as the common language of the Catalan Countries and as a key to social and cultural cohesion.
«Language is more than a simple communication tool […], it is a socio-cultural institution, an expression of a national culture.»
Conclusions of the Language Scope
One of the central debates was between normalization and standard language, always mindful of the need for a transition process respectful of social reality:
«We must guarantee equal linguistic opportunities for all Catalans, regardless of their family language.
Conclusions of the Language Scope
The media were considered essential to normalize and enhance the value of Catalan, and the Congress had great influence on the approval of the Language Normalization Law (1983).
The creation of a native publishing network was also promoted. Entities such as the Association of Catalan Language Writers (AELC), which works to defend authors’ rights and give visibility to Catalan literature, were highlighted.
This area’s closing event included a tribute to Gabriel Alomar, featuring the notable participation of M. Antònia Oliver and Francesc de Borja Moll.
Campaigns
From this area, emerged highly visible campaigns that brought the Catalan language into everyday life:
- Catalan in the streets
- Renaming streets
- Catalan signage for shops and establishments
Social cohesion. Building country from the ground up
The Congress’s social cohesion area unfolded along three main axes, highlighting the importance of connecting culture with the material and social conditions of citizens.
Social structure
The Congress was nourished by a broad network of collaborations between entities, unions, neighborhood associations, and town councils.
«Working for the Congress is working for the neighborhood» was a saying expressing the will to root culture in the territory and everyday life.
Issues like immigration, the transformation of the family institution, labor relations, and the union movement were discussed, with special emphasis on local participation and creativity.
Healthcare structure
This area defended the universal right to healthcare and advocated for territorial healthcare planning and a national healthcare service.
A public, democratic healthcare system not subordinated to international pharmaceutical industry interests was demanded, with a vision that understood healthcare as a social, economic, and collective matter.
Education system structure
Education was conceived as a central tool for national and cultural construction, with a strong reformist push. A linguistic planning and an educational system rooted in the territory, plural, and of quality were demanded.
Two visions converged: on the one hand a free, secular, and public school, and on the other, a mixed model supporting the coexistence between public and semi-public schools, under the Generalitat’s authority.
The debate gathered entities like Rosa Sensat (Catalan teacher’s association), Òmnium Cultural (Catalan Culture Association), ICE (Education Science Institute), scouting groups, and various professional and neighborhood associations.
Campaigns
- Workers for autonomy
- School in Catalan
- Education and Teaching in Catalan
Land planning: balancing development and sustainability
The Catalan Culture Congress placed at the center of debate the need for territorial planning based on regional structure (“comarques”) and respect for the environment.
It was the first nationwide ecological proposal, arguing that territorial protection could not be separated from debates about agriculture, industry, fishing, or tourism.
Mass tourism, water transfers, pollution, nuclear plants, and destruction of natural and cultural heritage were denounced as damaging forms of land use.
In response, fair agrarian planning, balanced infrastructures, efficient communications, and productive models rooted in territorial needs were demanded.
Tourism highlighted the need for a new model compatible with environmental protection.
Thirteen tourist areas were identified, and the creation of a dedicated tourism department was proposed.
This work concluded in Lloret de Mar with an exhibition of Catalan Countries’ tourism posters.
«The priority growth model had to aim to improve the population’s well-being.»
Campaigns
Some campaigns in defense of territory and heritage included:
- Save the Empordà wetlands
- Save the Aigüestortes National Park
- Save the Eivissa salt flats
- Save the Ebre river
Institutions and law: imagining self-government
The Catalan Culture Congress undertook a profound debate on the future institutions of the Catalan Countries, with a shared will to build real and effective self-government for each territory.
The goal was to rethink political and administrative organization to respond to the social, cultural, and economic needs of the whole country.
The subject was structured around three axes: autonomous power, municipal autonomy, and public administration, with broad participation from political forces, jurists, and civic movements.
It was defended that native institutions must have full functions and real decision-making capacity in areas such as social protection, economic regulation, service management, and taxation.
«We expect the Generalitat to have the basic functions of any truly autonomous political organism: protective, provider, entrepreneurial, fiscal, and arbitrator.»
Autonomy was conceived as a tool to bring power closer to citizens, strengthen democracy, guarantee equality between territories, and respect internal diversity within the Catalan Countries.
Within this framework, legal work lines were opened to update public and private law to the new reality.
The need to normalize Catalan in the legal sphere and reform family law to adapt it to contemporary society was highlighted.
«The law must ensure that these functions develop without any mechanisms or activities that block or destabilize them.»
(Vol. 1, p. 281)
Campaigns
From this area came the “We Want the Statute” campaign, a collective call to recover native institutions and establish a real self-government framework for the Catalan Countries as an expression of the democratic right to decide their own future
Arts, history, and popular culture: heritage and identity
The Catalan Culture Congress understood culture as a tool for collective transformation rooted in the territory.
Citizens were the protagonists: men and women of the Catalan Countries who, through their work and creativity, have shaped a shared heritage.
The arts, history, and popular culture areas worked together to recover shared references and build a future narrative.
History was approached as a tool to strengthen collective identity.
At the same time, popular culture was valued as a transmitter of collective meanings. The goal was to revitalize folklore, energize it, make it a pedagogical and civic resource, and recognize it as a living source of memory and belonging.
«Save and renew traditions […] will provide pedagogical, civic, and cultural service.»
Sanchís Guarner
The arts area (music, cinema, theater, architecture, and visual arts) defended creative renewal, heritage protection, and the link between artistic creation and community.
Promotion of musical diffusion, definition of Catalan cinema, territory-rooted theatre, and architectural heritage defence were emphasized.
Campaigns
- Folklore revitalization: dances, songs, and traditional instruments
- Recovery of festivals and advocacy for the sardana
The Congress continues
On November 22nd, 1977, at the Barcelona Congress Palace, the Catalan Culture Congress closed with a meaningful event.
There, President Tarradellas stated:
«Our culture must serve everyone to dignify us as individuals and strengthen us as a people.»
The Congress was a collective call throughout the Catalan Countries to imagine a dignified country, rooted in language, open to diversity, and committed to culture as a transformative force.
Fifty years later, we renew this call.
The Congress continues.